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| This weekend, I went to the California Math Council Conference in Palm Springs, which as everybody knows, is the single coolest and most awesome annual conference for elementary and secondary school math teachers in the entire Southern California region. Needless to say, it was full of exciting incidents. Not really, but writing about it is my therapeutic way of processing the trauma of sitting through hours and hours of how to teach math. Here are some highlights and lowlights in no particular order.
1) Chop House. Math for America decided to pay for dinner if you were a really great and amazing teacher who can make learning fun and exciting for all students. So naturally I was invited... by a friend who is in the program and was allowed to bring a guest. Our bill came out to $2500, which to date, is the second largest dinner bill of which I've been a part. Free steak. Mmmmmmm. I also learned how to remember which one is your wine glass and bread plate when faced with a confusing formal dinner arrangement where all nearby dinnerware appears to be yours.
2) Accidents. In the span of two days, I witnessed a man fall down an entire flight of steps and I boy on a bike get hit by a pickup truck. I've come to the conclusion that everyone in Palm Springs is clumsy or a bad driver (i.e. an Asian woman). It's either that, or that I'm the spawn child of the devil and I curse people with accidents wherever I go.
3) Bad estimation skills. The last workshop of the day had an estimation activity where we were asked to guess some statistics. Keep in mind that these are ADULTS who are math teachers.
- Question: How many US presidents have survived assassination attempts? The best answer was 64. SIXTY-FOUR!!! Two people guessed that. I don't need to say anything else. The correct answer is 11.
- Question: How far does the cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth II, move for each gallon of diesel that it burns? Someone guessed one mile. Considering the ship weighs 400 tons, I'd say it was a gross overestimate. The correct answer is 6 inches.
4) Hamburger Marys. So I went to this burger place for lunch because it smelled delicious. I ended up spending $30 on a Kobe beef burger, a Coke, and a vanilla malt. It was worth it and I highly recommend the place. I noticed that every single waiter at the place was very, very flamboyant. Then I noticed that the restaurant sign was all done in rainbow colors. Then I noticed that my my check came in a red stiletto shoe.
5) Palm Springs Air Museum. I accidentally woke up late on purpose for day 2. Since I was going to be late for the next workshop anyway, I decided to either hike up the 11,000-foot summit of San Jacinto, or check out the air museum. Planes beat nature that day.
Top Gun is one of my top three favorite movies. I'm not sure what a good call sign would be for me. Any ideas?
6) The most useful fact ever: A blue whale's tongue weighs more than an elephant.
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| There are several moments in life when you're glad no one's around to observe your reaction: When you're walking along a sidewalk and a dog starts barking at you from behind the fence; when you put a hoodie on backwards and realize that your face is inside the hood (see the previous xanga entry); when you spend two minutes wondering why your car remote isn't unlocking the door only to realize it's not your car; when you decide to boil an egg in the microwave, and then it explodes and burns your face with molten egg yolk (but I think this has only happened to me); when you don't realize the sidewalk has ended and you take an awkward step; and of course, when the water temperature in the shower suddenly decides to be scorchingly hot or unreasonably cold.
This last one seems to be a common occurrence that not enough people talk about. Sometimes it's caused by someone in the house flushing the toilet or a washing machine going through the rinse cycle. Whatever the cause, it triggers our innate desire to survive a surprise attack. People seem to adopt the common strategy of getting out of the way as quickly as possible. The adrenaline enables you to skillfully dart away from the scalding or freezing stream as you follow a simple algorithm: Go where the water is not. That's so deep it should be on a fortune cookie. Whether you end up plastered to a wall, straddling the spray, or scrunched up in a feeble ball of cowardice in some corner of the shower, even the slowest people find ways to move with the agility of sprinter. Some people do a little dance on the way to their corner, others simply glide over to safety. Those who do the dance usually make sounds of surprise akin to speaking in tongues. Others may find themselves shouting or swearing, or shouting while swearing. Deep down however, everyone asks the same profound question: Why?! Why is this happening?!
I don't know the answer to such a metaphysical inquiry, but I suspect the answer is entrenched in the idea of free will and predestination.
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| Last week, someone guessed my age to be in the mid to late thirties. Apart from my desire to retaliate with some unedifying retort, I reflected on the comment and concluded that my strange sleeping habits have caused me to appear haggard and aged. Let's go with that explanation because it makes the most sense.
I attribute the sleeping issues to two things:
There is this couch at home which has the unfortunate characteristic of being extremely comfortable. It discreetly whispers to you, "Come a sit for a bit. Watch some TV. It won't do any harm." I think Satan has possessed the couch. The moment your butt touches the cushion, you're trapped. The couch gradually convinces you to get more comfortable.
"Why are you sitting? There's enough room to lie down."
"You're right, couch. Thank you so much for your concern and suggestion."
"It's not like you'll fall asleep. And even if you do, it'll only be for a few minutes."
"You're right, couch. You are truly a benevolent couch."
And as it embraces every contour of your body, you peacefully... drift... into blissful... oblivion.
We had the couch's cousin in my college dorm room, which we appropriately named the DEATH COUCH, because it inevitably lead to the death of your GPA. We bought it for fifteen dollars at a local thrift store, and nursed it back to life by scrubbing the funk out of it for hours; and when that didn't work, we bathed it in CK One and assumed the cologne/perfume hybrid successfully eradicated the colonies of bacteria which had staked their homes in the fabric. Oh, the countless times I saw my roommate sincerely attempting to study on the couch only to find him snoring ten minutes later!
Enough of the nostalgic musings! Sleeping on the couch is not necessarily a restful experience. Sometimes, you get that sensation that you're falling off the bed and your body twitches in response. I hate that. Other times, you're aware that your neck is twisted in an uncomfortable situation, or the couch gets strangely hot. But none of this matters because the couch has you in it's grip. All that matters is the bond you have with the couch. Inevitably, you wake up thinking you've blinked and realize that you've slept for three hours and Sports Center has replayed numerous times. And as you wipe the drool off your face while stumbling in an aimless stupor, you curse the couch. But the couch just smiles, because it knows you'll be back tomorrow. It knows.
I said I attribute strange sleeping habits to two things, but this entry was pointless to begin with, so I think I'll stop for now. The couch commands it.
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| Since it was Thursday, I decided to do the most natural thing by hiking up to Echo Mountain after work. I had some incidents buying shorts to wear, but that's a whole other story. Anyway, I started regretting my decision about ten minutes in when I realized the entire trail lacked any sort of shade and I was left at the mercy of the sun for the entire 2.7 miles.
I arrived at the top, very unhappy and exhausted, and spent a good hour exploring the area and battling the five billion insects that seemed to be attracted to my eyes and ears. There were some pretty cool ruins of a resort that nature had systematically destroyed since the 1930's and an "echo phone" designed to make you look like an idiot who yells at a mountain hoping the mountain talks back.
Around 7:00 I struck up a conversation with an older hiker who informed me of this place called Inspiration Point, which was about two miles away and 1300 feet up. I DISTINCTLY remember our conversation:
Leo: "How long will it take to get there?"
Hiker: "About an hour, but it gets really steep towards the end."
Leo: "Only an hour?!!!"
Here it comes....
Hiker: "Yeah, but I wouldn't try it right now."
Leo: "Yeah, maybe next time when it's not so late in the day."
So naturally, when I arrived at the trial junction, I threw caution to the wind and set out for Inspiration Point.... at 7:00 PM. After all, I needed some inspiration in my life. I learned a few things from this experience:
1) Inspiration point is very inspiring.
2) Hiking back in the dark is not fun.
3) Rustling noises in the bushes above the trail cause me to picture bear maulings and mountain lion attacks. It also causes me to dig through my bag for protection and since I conveniently left my Swiss army knife in the car, an LED flashlight and some portable urinals will have to do.
4) LED flashlights last for years without requiring a battery change.
5) Thinking you can navigate the trail in the dark using the moonlight only works if the moon actually decides to show up.
6) Spiders like to weave their webs at night. This makes sense because unsuspecting bugs can't see the webs in the dark. I also know this because I inhaled about thirty of them as I ran down the trail in a desperate attempt to back to my car before 10 PM (ticket time).
7) High school students like to START a hike to Echo Mountain at 10 PM and ask insightful questions like, "Is it haunted?" and "Did you see KKK up there?"
8) Always always always ALWAYS listen to your elders.
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| I always thought my high school teachers were so odd. Each one had these quirks, mannerisms, and strange habits that made them so alien and abnormal. My math teacher added a "sh" at the end of random words. For example, she often told us to take out our "calculatorsh" or that two plus two is "foursh". Apparently, I've turned into one of those insane teachers because my students have systematically defined me by my top twelve teacher sayings. And here they are....
I'll highlight the meaningful ones.
1) Jobby. This word is the most versatile word in the English language and is also completely made-up. It's a more sophisticated form of "thingamajig" or "whatchamacallit". For example, "You take this jobby, and add the other jobby, and the result is this vector jobby." Or "This jobby is tangent to the curvy jobby." Or "What the jobby do you think you're doing?!!!!" Okay. The last one doesn't exactly work, but you get the idea.
2) "Does my voice sound sexy?" Apparently, a teacher should never say this because the class went nuts. I had a cold and was always under the impression that people with colds tend to sound deeper and huskier... hence... sexy.
3) I love you all the same. Kids always want to know if I favor them. I don't.
8) This is amazing! I think math is amazing. This is usually followed by lots of silence (out of boredom and not awe) and moments where students just stare at me an blink repeatedly. I can't help it. Math is amazing. The fact that the distribution of prime numbers as related to Riemann's zeta function has the same characteristics as a quantum mechanical system; the fact the a period three solution in the discrete logistic equation implies chaos; the fact that inside every Mandelbrot set is a self-repeating replica of another Mandelbrot set.... who would not be amazed? If you've read this far, you win a free dinner.
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